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Shade's Live Action Role Playing (LARP) List: Forums
Joined: Jul 12, 2002 Posts: 1060 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2003 5:11 pm Post subject: Photo awards
Wouldn't it be cool to have an international awards thingie for the best LARP photos of the year?
It could be set up as a web page, with the winners decided by public vote. Categories could be Best Costume, Makeup, Armour, Prop, Creature, Combat, Venue, etc.
You listening Shade? If you could set something like this up on larplist, it could draw a lot of international interest each year when the competition is run. Make people register to vote, and you've got instant members. Give people a month to nominate photos, a month to vote on the nominees, and then delare a winner in each category.
Joined: Jan 03, 2002 Posts: 313 Location: Ohio, USA
Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2003 6:41 pm Post subject:
That sounds pretty cool, Ryan! I'll have to start working on it. Maybe we can have something up in January and do awards in February or March 2004. Any other suggestions?
Joined: Jul 12, 2002 Posts: 1060 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2003 7:35 pm Post subject:
Well... make up a name for it. Then make up prize images that winners can stick on their websites. The prize image should have the award's name, like "Best Costume Photo 2003 - Shade's LARP Awards", with a little picture of an award statue or whatever, and should be a hyperlink to the photo awards section of larplist.com.
What else? Make up standards for the size of entries, say 600x450 for landscape, and 450x600 for portrait. Something easily viewed onscreen, and roughly the shape of a photo. Specify what digital manipulations are allowed. I'd say cropping and correcting colour is okay, but no editing the picture to add, change or remove objects. JPG format, at 80% quality or better. Maximum file size of 200KB?
You'll need some way of selecting the finalists from the nominees. I think there will eventually be too many nominations for people to trawl through them all and vote. Maybe a panel of judges for that stage.
And deciding on categories. Maybe that's something we could do as a group in this thread.
Once it's ready, it's just a matter of advertising like crazy on the international forums. I reckon you'd get plenty of interest from USA, UK, Europe, and Scandanavia. Perhaps even a photo or two from New Zealand.
Joined: Jul 12, 2002 Posts: 1060 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2003 11:06 pm Post subject:
So, what would make good categories? I'm assuming this would be for all LARP varieties - live-combat fantasy, MET, SF, Cthulhu, modern, etc. So maybe it would be best to avoid categories like "best armour" that are inappropriate to non-medieval settings.
What do you think of these categories? Assume that all of these suggestions read "Best xxx Photo".
Costume
Makeup
Creature
Item
Set
Situation
Artistic
I guess ettiquette would demand that all entries should photos taken during games, not set-ups.
Joined: Jul 07, 2003 Posts: 606 Location: Mikkeli, Finland
Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2003 1:37 am Post subject:
During an event, not the during the actual game... We finn's don't usually like people walking around with cameras during while we are playing...
Categories are fine...
Bill : About that blue color ... We almost always use makeup colors by Grimas. They are the most common amatour makeup kits we have in Finland. That blue color is just one of the different shades of blue they have. _________________ Very few rules, very good games and ... Awesome food.
Joined: Jul 12, 2002 Posts: 1060 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2003 11:06 pm Post subject:
Right, photos taken AT a game, not neccessarily during play. But definitely not professionally-lit studio-photos of a costume that was never actually used in a game because you didn't want to get it dirty. We want the photos to reflect the feel of being at a LARP.
Had an interesting conversation the other day about how to take photos during a game without bothering people. The two solutions suggested were to have "hides" like they use for wildlife photography, or to conceal a camera in the top of a staff, one with a knob on the end. If it was a magical staff, that would explain the occasional flash of light too.
Looking at those categories again, "Best Scene" is probably better than "situation". Also, a category for "Best Group" would be cool, suitable for anything from troops of soldiers to a mafia gang.
Jupe, I agree that this will bring out some competition, and provide high standards for LARP to aspire to. Here are some of the other benefits I can see:
- Make groups aware of what's happening in other countries.
- Get more players communicating internationally. I think we've all got a lot to learn from how people do things around the world.
- Give ideas for making cool costumes or items of your own.
- Have a centralised repository of some of the coolest photos of LARP, that we can point new players and organisers to and say "check out how cool this can be".
Photos seem a good way of achieving this because they're independant of language, and they're one of the first things that new players look at to understand what LARP is about. I know I spend ages trawling through international LARP sites looking at cool photos. It may seem superficial, but to get a feel of what a LARP is really like you have to be there, and photos (and reviews) are the next best thing.
Joined: Jan 03, 2002 Posts: 313 Location: Ohio, USA
Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2003 2:43 pm Post subject:
Looks like I'll be organizing this. Of course, any help would be appreciated. I want this widespread as possible. I'll advertise it once I have a system in place (for submissions, nominations, and voting). Working on details and programming issues. I'm probably going have something ready (rules and such) by early January. Looking for nomination through February. Voting will be around late February and awards around March.
Shade
BTW, Bill, I'll reply to your post soon. It's been a while since I used the Gallery myself and I have to figure it out. I should have written down some instructions somewhere.
Joined: Jul 12, 2002 Posts: 1060 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2003 3:53 pm Post subject:
Nifty! I really think this will be an easy win for the LARP community. And while we're talking easy wins, I wonder if a "Best LARP website" award would fit well too? Same story: nominations, votes. Maybe later. I think the photos will be the big drawcard.
I'd offer to help with the development, but my PHP knowledge is puny. I'm an ASP/SQL Server developer. Le me know if there's some way I can be of use though.
If anyone out there is a graphic designer, making a nice design for the award images to go on the winners' websites would be a good way to help. It could say something like "Best Costume Photo 2003", and then below "Shade's LARP Awards". And maybe graphics/design for the competition web page itself?
Joined: Jun 14, 2003 Posts: 152 Location: Southwest Florida
Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2003 4:58 pm Post subject: Stay on target.
Small steps, Ryan, small steps.
So here goes:
Name: Shade's International LARP Photo Awards 2003
Host and Impartial Moderator: Shade
Judges Panel: Bill, Jupe, and Ryan
Categories:
Best Costume
Best Makeup
Best Creature or Monster
Best Item or Prop
Best Group
Best Venue (Set) (It took me a good five minutes to figure that one out - and I have theater experience)
Best Scene
Artistic or Wildcard
Each judge will cast a vote for 1st through 3rd place for each category. 1st place votes will receive three points, 2nd two points, and 3rd one point. The photo with the highest score wins. Ties will be broken by the impartial moderator.
Submission requirements: For this first contest I would really play fast and loose with the rules. I'd set a standard submission size and format (computer geeks?) and leave it at that. If folks want to take a picture in their basement before heading out to the field I'm ok with that. If it gets a huge response we can formalize rules and requirements (or even categories) for next years contest.
I volunteered the folks responding in this thread because you guys are the only ones to respond and it gives us an international panel.
I can't count the number of times I've seen folks write LARP rulebooks and cram them full of fantasy art. Pictures capture what LARPing is all about.
What do you guys think?
Also, I'm pretty computer ignorant so you'll have to tell me what I can do to help.
Bill _________________ "Friends are people who know the words to the song in your heart, and sing them back to you when you have forgotten them." -Anonymous
Joined: Jul 12, 2002 Posts: 1060 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2003 8:06 pm Post subject: Re: Stay on target.
I'm happy with your category changes Bill.
angry_bill wrote:
Each judge will cast a vote for 1st through 3rd place for each category. 1st place votes will receive three points, 2nd two points, and 3rd one point. The photo with the highest score wins. Ties will be broken by the impartial moderator.
I think the role of the judges will be to select finalists from all the entries.
The winners should be selected by a public vote. While public votes may not always be the fairest way of selecting a winner, they are by far the best way of attracting continuous interest in the competition.
I think a couple more judges would be good. Someone from the UK. And maybe our Italian friend to represent continental Europe as opposed to Scandinavia? I'm happy to judge but don't claim any particular expertise except knowing cool stuff when I see it. The suggested panel is fine for now, but for future events it might pay for Shade to select people with a visual arts background for judges.
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